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23 Comments

How solidly anchored is the 24pin ATX socket, and how stiff is the board itself? I've always assumed the reason I've never seen a sideways version of one was that the thickness and stiffness of the cable meant that if used in cases with behind the board cabling or that had limited space in front of the board would result in excess torque being applied.Reply

board is made of good quality material( stiff) and 24 pin is securely attached, but its location makes it very difficult for removal unless the board is removed from the case. Ive had this board since launch and can verify that the bios situation is as bad as the reviewer states. 2.07 does fix some of the overclocking bugs, but there are other issues that still persist. disabling marvell raid ports disables USB 3.0 ports. ? I have 4 ssds setup as a bootable raid-0 and have had it fail 3 times, once randomly, 2 others after updating the bios, 2.04, 2.07. considering this tech has been around 2 years , I don't see how they couldn't get this board rock solid day one. There are no features on the board that justify the price tag. Raid performance on marvell ports is abysmal. USB ports have serious issues. RIVE is a better buy and a better performer. I have already sold this board and am waiting for the RIVE black. I would advise anyone on picking up this board to look elsewhere. One look in the forums and you will understand why.Reply

I can attest to that. I used to use a SilverStone SUGO SG-03 for a SLI setup. Any angled connectors on the board are evil and should be expunged. Its less of an issue on an EATX board because the required cases are enormous but still annoying.Reply

The angled sata connectors are due to SLI/xFire on ATX/mATX boards; because there's not enough space near the southbridge to fit them in somewhere they're not at risk of being blocked by longer cards.Reply

I have built ten high end machines using EVGA boards and I have never seen more eye candy or enjoyed tweaking it where "no man has ever been before" in a motherboard; including ASUS's Rampage IV which lasted a little over a year before giving up the ghost. Although supposedly still under warranty, I spent weeks trying to get an RMA from ASUS and finally gave up. This particular board is in my opinion, perfection at its best. It is significantly thicker and sturdier than the Rampage and the ATX socket, along with the rest that are at 90 degrees including the USB 3.0 to make room for that fourth GPU, are as stiff as in their vertical position. In fact, you can see the thickness of the metal framing coming through the board if you peel back the thick rubber insulation. These are all innovations and not gimmicks that I have found to be a constant with EVGA products. Never mind the fact that their technical support is available 24/7 for customers that have registered their products. They have a toll-free number and normally, you are on the phone with a live individual within two or three minutes. Better yet, they speak excellent English and and do know what they are talking about. You can't find anything this good anywhere. And best of all, they resolve your problems rather than put you off. And when warranted, you will hang -up with an RMA that is already in process.Reply

Troubling to hear. I have always bought EVGA boards, usually the latest releases when I build a new system. Their boards are usually solid well built and their technical support and return policy are the best. You call and get to speak with real people.Reply

They lost almost the entire motherboard engineering team to Sapphire like two years ago, and Shamino / Tan moved to ASUS. Their boards have been mediocre since, living off the hype fumes of the X58 glory days when they were one of the best boards out there.Reply

Interesting, as I was sort of under the impression that Sapphire had bailed back out of the motherboard market again a while back. I picked up a Sapphire Pure E-350 a couple years ago, as it was the right combination of price and features (even though documentation and support were fairly awful.) It's been a solid board, running my home file server. Last I looked, though, there were no Sapphire boards to be found. Maybe they just bailed on the US market?Reply

Crazy that they're asking $400 for this board. No ALC1150? ... Really? It's not like X79 is a brand new chipset, they've had plenty of time to figure out how to make a proper motherboard. Disappointing to say the least.Reply

I bought one of these and had nothing but trouble with it, despite using three different sets of RAM, etc, etc. I came to the conclusion that the board just wasn't ready to go, and got an ASUS X79-DELUXE instead. So far, working 1000% better.Reply

i dropped EVGA a couple of years ago and went to Asus simply because of their Custom PCB Video cards, and awesome motherboards.. EVGA was great, but they lacked a lot of custom and high performance components. All of their graphics cards were basicly a refrence design with a evga sticker.

Here recently, they've heard the outcry and started making custom coolers, and maybe 1 or 2 custom pcb cards, but their engineering department pales in comparison to Asus's.

EVGA does win in the warranty and customer service departments. I loved that about evga, however i would have to rma my cards about once a year due to failing components. Now since i've went to custom pcb cards with better cooling and better parts, i haven't had to RMA once.. And if i ever have to RMA with Asus, i dread it, because they're customer support is awful.Reply

I can't see why anyone would buy this. EVGA might be a top-tier video card supplier but their motherboards are seriously unproven and generally problematic. Unless they prove a real cut-rate price I can't see sales coming their way. And even that, in the high-end, probably doesn't matter. I would literally pay $150 more for the Rampage Formula than for this.Reply

Alas I have to agree. Seems odd to release a board like this now which has so manyproblems when there are alternatives such as the awesomely reliable and easy to userange from ASUS which won't cause any grief. You mentioned the Formula; there'salso the Extreme, though I bought the P9X79 WS which has identical functions asregards oc'ing, etc. I had no problems getting mine to 4.7 with a 3930K, 64GB RAM@ 2133, _four_ GTX 580 3GB cards, several SSDs, disks, etc. See:

Not nit-picking, just pointing out the grammatical error in the 2nd paragraph, last sentence (manufacturer<manufactures): "A BIOS is always just ones and zeroes, and it is up to the company who manufacturer the motherboard to get the BIOS to work first time, even on the simple stuff."